The Book:
The Lasy Party by Cassidy Lucas
Published April 26th 2022 by Harper Paperbacks
Date read: April 10, 2022
The Characters:
Dawn/Dani, the birthday girl
Quinn, her daughter
Mia, Graham, Reece, Summer, and Joanie – her friends
Tywla and Arnold, the ranch owners
Raj, who also lives on the property
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
For Los Angeleno Dani Sanders, turning 50 seems like one more disappointment. Her career has stalled, her nineteen-year-old daughter with developmental issues is regressing, and Dani’s ex-husband Craig, a fertility doctor worshipped by Hollywood’s elite, is forever upending her life. Though she doesn’t feel much like celebrating, she can’t say no when her best friend Mia Markle, a flamboyant and strong-willed actress, insists on planning a “creative” birthday weekend in the wild, wealthy bohemian enclave of Topanga Canyon.
On the weekend of the Summer Solstice, Dani and her six closest friends gather in the hills above the canyon at “Celestial Ranch,” 18-acres of rugged, wooded mountainside where they’ll spend three glorious days hiking, practicing meditation and reiki, and enjoying lavish catered cuisine. They will also indulge in a little DMT, a short-acting psychedelic drug meant to open their senses and transport them to a higher plain. But as the weekend unfolds, long-buried tensions, unresolved grievances, and old secrets emerge, leaving Dani desperate for clarity about her life.
Dani and her friends take the drug late at night on an open hillside beneath the glittering stars. When Dani returns from her intense and revelatory “trip,” she learns that one of her friends has gone missing. Then another disappears. And soon, Dani finds herself alone on the dark mountainside, seemingly abandoned by the people who are supposed to love her most.
Or have they somehow been taken from her?
What could Dani have possibly done to deserve a devastating birthday night like this—and how will she make it to the morning alone?
The Twist:
The group of friends got to know each other through a parenting group for parents of neurodivergent children. They were anti-vaxxers who created a vaccine forgery ring to get their children into school without the required vaccines.
When the anti-vaxxers got caught and charged for falsifying medical records, Dawn claimed she knew nothing about it. She wasn’t charged, and everyone else took the blame. Reece, the group leader, tried to kill herself in the aftermath.
The party was arranged to coerce dawn into apologizing to the other members.
The Ending:
Sibyl had kidnapped her baby brother from their abusively religious parents and ran away from home as a teen. Jax was that baby brother–she had sold him on the black market in a misguided attempt to save him but his life ended up even worse (although we don’t really know how so).
Raj used to be a silicon valley bigwig. He threw a superspreader party during Covid in order to propose to his girlfriend, but she died from Covid alongside four other people at the party. He was hallucinating her at Celestial Ranch.
When everything comes to a head, someone knocks over a candle and the property goes up in flames. Raj walks into the fire. Every single question I had is left unanswered.
The Questions:
Why would Dawn go to this party of people she knows must resent her, at the very least?
What happened with Jax and Sibyl? Their interaction just ended after the reveal.
What did Sybil’s story have to do with anything?
And Raj, other than to add some odd Covid parallels?
Honestly, I have way more questions than this, but I’m bored of thinking about it.
The Review:
Thank you to Harper for a complimentary ARC and to Harper Audio for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.
This reminded me a lot of The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan. We have a group of frenemies who don’t trust each other, a remote vacation rental, and a cooky older couple who own the property. I really like the genre of “girls weekend gone wrong”, so I was excited to dive in.
The story started off strong. A group of parents, bound by a support group for their neurodivergent kids? I was here for it. Obviously something had gone wrong within the group, but I was happy to see the rep in the beginning. As soon as the storyline turned towards the anti-vax plot, though, I began to get wary. It could have gone one of two ways: the anti-vaxxers would learn their lesson, or they wouldn’t and I would hate it.
I feel like the plot had a lot of potential to be both interesting and informative, but instead it took some odd turns that didn’t make much sense to me. What could have been an interesting look at the harmful effects of anti-vax ideology turned into a somewhat nonsensical revenge plot. If Dawn hadn’t spoken to these people in years, why would she suddenly go on vacation with them (and bring her daughter!) when she thought there might be some bad blood between them?
What I loved: Twyla and Arnold’s story. Twyla was certainly cooky, but I really enjoyed her love for her land and animals, as well as her determination to keep doing what she loved. When we finally got to Arnold’s POV I was chuckling to myself, because there’s nothing more amusing than an ornery old man. I also liked how the authors used Twyla, Raj, and Sibyl to give the reader outside opinions of the friend group. Though there were many POVs that changed often, it was done cohesively and was never confusing who was speaking.
I also liked that neither Quinn nor any of the other children were made the scapegoat, because I really had the tropes where the neurodivergent person is the bad guy.
With both Raj and Sibyl, I didn’t understand the point of including their storylines. While each of their backstories could have made an interesting book on their own, it didn’t really jive with the main plot surrounding Dawn and her friends. We didn’t see enough of them for their stories to feel complete.
In the end, I was just left with a lot of questions. Perhaps this was intentional to invite discussion, but to me it just felt incomplete. None of the many storylines were wrapped up in a satisfying way, or even at all.
I did read an advanced copy, so maybe some of the plot holes will be ironed out before the final copy is released. I also received my copy a while before I picked it up, so it’s possible they already have been! I will note that the MC was called Dawn in my copy, while she is referred to as Dani in the blurb.
To be honest, I DNF’d Santa Monica as well (which is very rare for me), so I’ll likely be waiting for reviews before I pick up another book by this author duo.
Final thought: What the heck is up with that cover tagline? “Some of the guests were not invited”? Who wasn’t invited? Raj? He wasn’t a guest. Twyla or Arnold? They weren’t guests either, they were the AirBnb hosts, and Mia knowingly selected an AirBnb that had the hosts on the property. It makes no sense.
Alright, I’m done.
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QOTD: What is the coolest AirBnB you’ve stayed in? This past Labor Day, I stayed in a clay adobe in the desert with some friends.
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